The Tara Foundation was established in 2001.
It aims to help hopeless, destitute children and Tibetan refugees in India and Nepal. Recently the Tara Foundation started helping in Tibet too.
The Tara Foundation has 3 main projects and 2 smaller projects:
1. A school for the very poorest children in Nagarkot, Nepal
This project started in 1998, for the children of the Tamang people in Nagarkot, Nepal, who are outside the cast system and therefore have very few opportunities. This project has now grown into a thriving school with 121 children of 4-16 years of age. At the school the children receive a decent education, and where necessary, they and their parents also receive medical care. (Click here for more information)
2. Aid for the sick and seriously disabled children in Bihar, India's poorest state
These severely disabled children often have completely deformed limbs, as a result of polio, meningitis and bone-tuberculosis. As well as helping these children, the Tara Foundation now also tries to help serious ill children, as much as possible. They are in urgent need of treatment and medicines, to survive. Tara Foundation works together with a local clinic in Bodhgaya, led by Western volunteers. Unfortunately, at present not enough children can be helped by the clinic, although there are hundreds of children in this area, who urgently need help. Without help they have absolutely no chance of survival.
(Click here for more information)
3. Aid to Tibetan refugees in need: Monks in Southern India & Nuns in Nepal
(already about 100 of them are sponsored now by means of Tara Foundation!)
a. The Gaden Jangtse monastery at Mundgod (In Southern India).
This monastery is literally overflowing with a constant flow of refugees from Tibet. As well as the refugees, who are monks or like to become a monk, many young children, from the very poor border regions of India are delivered, by their family, to the monastery, because the family can't afford to feed them.
All this takes a great toll on the monastery, where there are already approx. 2,500 monks living.
In almost all cases the monks are too poor to support themselves. Many monks are ill, often seriously, and in need of support. In the past many monks died because of lack of medical care.
To solve these health problems, in 2005 a small not-for-profit hospital was built near the monastery. This building was paid for by a very generous one-off donation. For the day-to-day running of the hospital and equipment, the hospital is totally dependant from donations from abroad.
(Click here for more information)
Besides general donations to the monastery we urgently need sponsors for sick refugee monks as well as "foster parents" for the many juvenile monks that live in very difficult circumstances and who need your help to survive. (Click here for more information). In October 2008, a group of monks of the Gaden Jangtse monastery will tour various European countries to perform their traditional dances and to make sand mandalas. The revenue of this tour will be dedicated to facilities for refugees from Tibet, for the children that flood the monastery at present, as well as for building new rooms and a prayer hall for Tsawa Khangsten.
The Tara Foundation will organize the Spanish leg of the dancing monks' tour. (Click here for more information)
b. The Khachoe Ghakyil Ling nunnery near Kathmandu (Nepal):
Because of the seemingly never-ending and even increasing flow of refugees from Chinese-occupied Tibet, the nunnery has become dangerously overcrowded and there is now a serious lack of funds. Because of this, the nunnery had to stop taking in new refugees. This is very sad for those women who left their families behind and risked their lives to come to Nepal.
Many women seek out this nunnery because it is one of the few places where nuns can get the same level of education as monks, which is very particular.
Also many women from Nepal, India and Bhutan very much want to enter this nunnery for this reason.
(Click here for more information)
Apart from general donations to the monastery, we are also looking for sponsors for refugee nuns. By making such a donation you will also benefit the monastery. (Click here for more information)
4. The Drak War Monastery (Baa) in Tibet
This is the monastery of the late Sersang Rinpoche, who was killed by the Chinese.
The monastery was totally destroyed. Now it is has been rebuilt, but it is far too small for all the monks. The monastery lacks any income and is in urgent need for help for expansion and for the livelihood of the monks.
(Click here for more information)
5. Preservation of Dharma Texts - The Library Project.
The Library Project, as the name suggests, is dedicated to the preservation of Dharma texts.
It aims to make the many texts, which were lost and damaged by the Chinese invasion of Tibet, available again.
(Click here for more information)
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